Today is Anna's birthday (Happy Birthday loser if you ever read my blog again) and rather than pick a song specific to our friendship, I figured I'd use this day to tell you guys about my new favorite artist courtesy of Tumblr. Now when I say artist I legitimately mean an artist. As in a painter. There are a few inaccuracies in the post I found so I'll just post some bits and pieces, but I hope you guys will be inclined to look her up more. So my favorite is Artemisia Gentileschi. She became an artist in a time when women were viewed as objects rather than people, mostly thanks to the influencing that her father (also an artist) did on the art community. His position meant that she got professional training and tutoring in the craft. She was pretty famously known for depicting great women from works of literature. You could fill a book with a study on how she draws them compared to how men draw them.
An example being her work "Judith Slaying Holofernes. "It's about a bible story where Holofernes, an Assyrian general, led troops to invade and destroy Bethulia, the home of Judith. Judith fixes this by effecting seducing him to get his guard down and drunk enough that he passed out, After he did, Judith and her handmaiden took his sword and cut his head off. Now if you look at this scene when comparing Artemisia's art to a man's depiction, like Carivaggio: "Artists usually went out of their way to show Judith committing the act while trying to detach her from the actual violence of it. In this way, they could avoid her losing the morality of her character and also avoid showing a woman committing such aggression. So here we see a young, rather delicate looking Judith in a pure white dress. She is daintily holding down this massive man and looks rather disgusted and upset at having to do this."
Artemisia's version is very different than the standard. "Holofernes looks less like he’s simply surprised by the goings ons and more like a man choking on his own blood and struggling fruitlessly against his captors. The blood is less of a bright red than in Carrivaggio’s but is somehow more sickening. It feels more real, and gushes in a much less stylized way than Carrivaggio’s. Not to mention, Judith here is far from removed from the violence. She is putting her physical weight into this act. Her hands (much stronger looking than most depictions of women’s hands in early artwork) are working hard. Her face, as well, is completely different. She doesn’t look upset, necessarily, but more determined." Artemisia's work also including the handmaiden in the action rather than standing idly by which is noteworthy considering the hardships Artemisia went through herself. I'm not going to talk about those hardships because it normally overshadows her work, so if you really want to know, you'll have to look it up too. And I hope you will.
Peace.
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